A prudent person foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and suffer -- Proverbs 22:3

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Quandry of the Gun Safe

Honestly, I do not have that many guns, but I do have more than one or two. I have had a safe for sometime, and, recently, I acquired, rather unintentionally, a larger one. The old one was small and unobtrusive. It has gone to reside elsewhere. The old one would hold most of my long guns. The new one will hold everything and then some. So the question becomes, when you can put everything in there, what, if anything, do you leave out?

The argument for a shotgun is almost overwhelming. I don't expect to need it for self-defense, but it is hard to beat plus it will eliminate most of the annoying varmints and pests and vermin that become a problem from time to time. Perhaps the only argument against it is that I can't stick in in my pocket.

Next would be a handgun because these are easy to pack around when doing other things and can be kept out of sight more easily so as not to frighten visitors unnecessarily. The choice here would probably come down to my XDM .40 or my Super Blackhawk .44. I shoot the Blackhawk better than most of my rifles -- which is not saying a whole lot, but I've improved considerably with the Springfield, and it is stainless when humidity and bad conditions are a concern. Also, I can easily attach a light to the .40's bottom rail to help with those nighttime armadillo confrontations.

Those of you who read this stupid crap of mine fairly regularly can probably guess the next candidate -- my cult favorite, the Marlin .22WMR rifle or the Single-Six with the .22WMR cylinder. In fact, the Single-Six may win out most of the time because a) I shoot it even better than my SBH, b) I don't expect to have to shoot it out with a gang of 'roided up zombie bikers, and c) despite the ammunition shortage I still have hundreds of rounds of .22 mag.

In any case, something tells me I'm not likely to forget the combination on the safe.

You know, I was thinking the very same thing -- I need to get an AR just so I can lock it up. Or, as my varmint-shooting lawyer said, if you have a 48-gun safe, you ought to have 48 guns. It just seems right.

I put the safe in my office. The rest of the house is on a crawl space. My office is an elevated slab attached to the garage. I live out here most of the time. I do need a nightstand gun -- preferably a revolver. My wife keeps her .38 snubby on her side.

My philosophy of .38 non-+P snub-nose shooting is similar to my philosophy of knife fighting. It's better if the attacker doesn't know you have it until you use it. Kind of the opposite of the Slow Joe Biden double-barrel shotgun rule.

That reminds me of a story I read of a country preacher who lived around Mount Vernon, MO, with his wife out of town near their little church. He was one of the early Cowboy Action shooters. One night a bunch of rowdy kids were apparently going to party around the church -- I don't remember the exact circumstances, the preacher came out on the porch of his house to confront them. Not wanting any trouble, but wanting to be prepared, he had one of his single-action revolvers behind his back. He talked to the rowdies who, he was surprised to find, were amazingly polite and cooperative, and agreed to leave on peaceful and friendly terms.

Somewhat taken by his own powers of persuasion, as they left, he turned around to find his wife behind him, cradling her coach gun.

Quotables

The true Christian should not resign himself to the inevitable: he should trust in the impertinence of a repeated prayer. -- Don Colacho

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. -- Robert A. Heinlein

When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law -- Bastiat

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy.

If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military. The hired servants of our rulers.

Only the government -- and a few outlaws.

I intend to be among the outlaws.--Edward Abbey from “The Right to Arms”

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